


Into the Fire

by Callisto



Category: The Professionals
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-05
Updated: 2011-05-05
Packaged: 2017-10-19 00:54:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callisto/pseuds/Callisto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Bodie kept his eyes steady on Doyle, didn’t let his own gaze so much as flicker down. “So you’re...?”</i></p><p><i>“Off the case. Spectacularly. I’m supposed to be in a squat in Bethnal Green watching a potting shed.”</i></p><p><i>And fuck if the giggles didn’t hit at that. Bodie ended up holding his side and swearing as Doyle hiccupped and tried to shush him. It didn’t work, and suddenly awkward and confused disappeared in a wave of warmth and familiarity Bodie should never have let sex get in the way of.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Fire

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE hugs and thanks to my betas Ancasta and Izzie, who got me over the finish line with this. To PRZed for being a splendid partner in crime, and to Drayce for giving me enough plot to get there.
> 
> And thanks to the lovely Firle, who made such a gorgeous cover for this story.

“Never known anyone look in a mirror as much as you, Bodie. You really think you’re a handsome devil, don’t you?”

Miranda had walked up behind him and was standing on her toes. All the better for her to tuck her chin over his left shoulder and meet his eyes in the mirror as she said it. He knew by the slide of her perfectly manicured hands around his waist and the tilt of her head towards his face there was nothing but seduction in her smile. Still, it rankled a little. He wasn’t vain. Just...aware of certain truths in the universe. One of them being a first name acquaintance with a few Saville Row tailors had always served him well, another was knowing how to dress for maximum effect. A girl like Miranda and a place like Philippos in Knightsbridge definitely called for maximum effect.

He resisted the sudden twitch to his cock as her hand slipped lower. Instead, he turned, pecked her on the cheek, and then sent her scurrying with a giggle as he slapped her lightly on the behind.

“There’ll be plenty of time to ruin all this perfection later.” He turned back to the mirror and gave his tie one last adjustment. He heard Miranda humming from his bedroom and resisted the urge to look at his watch. He’d been ready twenty minutes ago.

“Bodie?”

Now he looked at it. They were going to miss their reservation if they didn’t leave soon. He picked up his money clip and tucked it into his inside jacket pocket, absently wondering where his car keys were.

“Old Spice, Bodie?”

It took him a split second to school his face before he turned round to see her in the doorframe, waving the half-empty bottle at him, eyebrow arched and her smile ever so gently mocking.

 _Smell better’n you any day of the week and twice on Sundays, mate. It’s all about how you carry yourself, not about how much you... Bodie! You... Don’t do that when I’m shaving, you randy sod._

Bodie took a steadying breath. He could do this. It’d been nearly two months and he could do this.

He forced an answering smile onto his face, even though he wanted nothing more than to step forward, rip the bottle out of her hands, and tell her to mind her own business.

“A gift,” he said, stepping closer. He slid a finger down her neck to her shoulder, and then down her arm to where she held the bottle loosely in her fingers. He made himself smile at her. “Couldn’t throw it away, what would granny say?”

 _Better than that muck you plaster all over yourself. There is nothing wrong with Old Spice, Bodie. And I didn’t hear you complaining about the way I smelled last night. Like a bloody limpet you were._

“Such a gentleman,” she purred, standing up again to kiss him lightly on the lips.

He took the bottle out of her fingers and without looking, put it on the sideboard and slid it out of reach.

“Ready?” He asked.

She raised an eyebrow at him and canted her hand on her hip. “What do you think?”

 _I think, mate, that you should get out of that gear as fast as possible, before I decide I’ve better things to do on a Sunday than wait around for you and your silly mid-wickets to hit balls at each other._

He blinked and saw her. Finally. A vision in long, soft, burgundy silk and gold heels. He smiled, a little more naturally this time. “Better than mortal man deserves.” He stepped forward and offered her his arm. “Shall we?”

Yes, he could definitely do this.

******

“He’s late.”

Bodie was concentrating on his tea and Samantha Fox in no particular order, so he didn’t look up.

Jax threw a biscuit at him.

“For fuck’s...” Bodie picked the biscuit off his lap, thought about throwing it back, but popped it in his mouth instead.

“Your other half,” continued Jax, shaking his head. “He’s late. Cowley will have him if he misses the briefing. Another heavy night with whatshername, was it?”

“No idea,” said Bodie, trying to sound bored and reabsorbed in Samantha Fox’s bustline.

“Yeah. Been what? God, nearly two months. Be wedding bells soon the rate he’s going.”

Bodie could no longer see Samantha Fox, such was his concentration on not showing any visible reaction.

“Yeah, old love ’em and leave ’em Doyle seems to be off the market for the forseeable future. Isn’t that right, Bodie?” This from Murphy, who had just slid into the chair opposite Bodie, but who had clearly been loitering at the kettle, listening.

Bodie was still trying to look vaguely irritated and completely bored, but even he realised the nature of the silence in the room had changed, and that at least three agents were now looking at him and expecting some kind of response.

So he did what he did best. He affected a loud, put-upon sigh, closed his newspaper, and folded his hands in his lap. “Right, since a man can’t even look at the lovely Samantha in peace around here, what are you sad specimens wittering on—”

A series of catcalls and whistles cut him off, which could only mean one thing. Doyle had arrived in... Bodie turned his head to check...yes, the same clothes he’d left the pub in last night. Even if the clothes had been different, he had the air of a man who’d done everything in a bed but sleep, and just about remembered to borrow a toothbrush before leaving it.

“Yeah, yeah, all right. God, you lot have pathetic lives. Stuff it, Jax.” Doyle stuck two fingers up at the agent, and then waved them round the room in a general and all-encompassing ‘up yours’.

Then Ray did that thing he always did when Bodie was trying to be cool against him; he turned that killer watt smile private, just for Bodie. “Mornin’” he said, in a completely different voice. “I miss anything?”

Just as well, really. It was always easier when Bodie didn’t have to try so hard to mind an over-sexed Doyle. He let an answering smile get pulled out of him. “Nah, just killing time till you got here, mate.” He folded up the newspaper and got to his feet. He gave Doyle the slow once over that was expected at such times. “Come on, time to go and see what Queen and Country have for us today. We’ll sit you at the back and keep you downwind.”

******

The briefing was short and to the point. Whisperings of an exchange of arms for black market South African bullion had been getting louder by the week. A couple of bodies with embassy connections had washed ashore the previous day. All the labels had been cut out of their clothes and the men had had their throats slit from ear to ear. Clearly a message—but to whom, and warning what exactly?

Cowley wanted to know, that much was clear from the way he barely managed not to roll his eyes at the inefficient way MI5 had handled it so far. Up to their ears in Russians and Bulgarians, it seemed they were only too happy to have the buck unceremoniously taken away and passed along.

In Cowley’s office afterwards, a black and white photograph was placed in front of Bodie and Doyle. Bodie picked it up and peered at it, then slanted it left towards his partner.

“Looks like the man who served us chips yesterday,” Bodie remarked.

Doyle leaned in to look. “You know, you’re right. Shave the mustache, add ten years and a double chin, and he’s a dead ringer.”

Cowley cleared his throat, and they stopped grinning at each other.

“Sir. All ears, sir,” said Bodie.

“You’d better be, laddie. The pair of you.” Cowley tapped one of the photographs with his finger. “I’ve a feeling this man might be the key. His name is Rudolph Kruger. He’s rich, he’s arrogant, and he’s back and forth frequently between here and Cape Town. I also have it on good authority he quietly got engaged to the step-daughter of the ambassador’s brother two days before the bodies washed ashore. Not a solid link to be sure, but still...” He trailed off and removed his glasses.

“What does MI5 say about him?” asked Doyle.

Cowley paused, smiled, and Bodie did too. He turned to speak to his partner, though his eyes stayed fixed on his boss.“They don’t know, Doyle. You’ve kept this little thought to yourself, haven’t you, sir?”

“The dots were only tentatively joined together yesterday.”

“Seconds after the minister handed it over, eh? Shame, that.”

“Quite.” There was still the barest hint of a smile on Cowley’s face.

Doyle gestured at the photographs on the desk. “What’s the plan, then? Surveillance?”

“Aye. But I want something a little more up close and personal with Kruger. He’s not raising alarms with anyone but me so far, which means I’m either chasing shadows...

“...or you’re right on the money,” finished Doyle.

“Precisely.”

“So...?” prodded Bodie, keen as ever to get to the nuts and bolts of the thing.

Only it made Cowley focus on him and smile, and Bodie rather wished he’d left well enough alone. The rule amongst them all was simple and unchanging: never trust the old man if he smiled just before he gave you an assignment. Even worse if he slipped you a Scotch along with it.

“Why, one of you is going to ingratiate yourself into his inner circle, Bodie. I have it on good authority that one of his bodyguards is about to slip on some very nasty ice and do himself no good at all.”

“In June? That will be clumsy of him,” snorted Doyle, clearly unimpressed.

“Quite.” Cowley held out a manilla folder. “One of you will run the surveillance while the other shadows Kruger’s every move.” The folder hovered between them and Bodie got the distinct impression of a cat with cheese. He resisted the urge to openly shake his head. You never knew what was going to float the old man’s boat at times.

The folder landed squarely in front of Doyle and Bodie breathed out a small sigh of relief. Bodie would go undercover, like they all did if and when, but he didn’t relish it the way his mad partner did. He didn’t spend hours in front of the mirror practising accents and trying to decide if his collar flipped up or down made him look more or less like a crooked art dealer.

“Doyle? I believe you’re rather fond of dressing up, are you not?” Cowley was definitely smiling now.

Doyle squirmed and looked at Bodie, expecting support maybe, but Bodie was now also feeling free to enjoy this a bit. He leant an elbow on Cowley’s desk and sat forward.

“Ah, now, sir. Don’t know what you’ve heard about Doyle here, but it was only the once and he got the dress back from the dry cleaners good as new. Not a sequin out of place.”

“I’ll sequin you in a minute.”

“All right, you two. Doyle, you’ll be set up as a member of the gym where two of his previous bodyguards sometimes trained. I doubt much will actually be required of you, since the man seldom seems to place himself directly in the line of fire. But I do want his contacts, I want to know where he goes and who he talks to, so it’s more of a case of having you as a permanent shadow. You’ll work out the usual drop-off routine with Bodie, of course, and... 4.5, was there something you wished to add?”

Cowley’s tone had gone from even to sharp as he pinned Doyle with a look over the top of his glasses. Bodie looked too, took in the way Doyle was scratching his nose and shifting in his seat, clearly trying too hard for nonchalance.

“No, nothing, sir. I was just...well, if it doesn’t matter, I was wondering if Bodie could do the dressing up on this one.”

Bodie tried to get Doyle to look at him by the sheer will power of his glare. But Doyle resolutely lifted his chin and fixed his gaze on Cowley, though the tap of his fingers just above his right knee gave him away.

What. The. Fuck.

They never did this. Never questioned who would do what. They just nodded, listened, and then later scowled and made fun of whichever one was in dress-up mode, when Cowley was out of earshot.

Bodie smoothed a hand down his sleeve, picking off an imaginary piece of fluff and gave up trying to get Doyle to look at him. Whatever Doyle was playing at—and Bodie had a pretty good idea unfortunately—Doyle was a fucking amateur if he thought this was going to get to him. He turned a cool gaze towards Cowley, settled his hands in his lap and waited for the old man’s reaction.

How Doyle managed to sit still under such piercing scrutiny Bodie didn’t know, but what surprised him even more, was the expected explosion about prima donnas and insubordination never came. Cowley merely nodded, wry smile still in place, and nudged the folder towards Bodie. “Well then, 3.7, it looks like you’ll be the one visiting Mayfair clubs in a dinner jacket.”

Still resentful of the fact that Doyle thought he could pick and choose assignments, Bodie managed to brighten considerably at the words ‘Mayfair’ and ‘dinner jacket’. That sounded much more like his kind of undercover.

“Yeah?” Bodie picked up the folder and flipped it open. Shots of an imposing, slightly overweight man entering and exiting various cordoned off red carpets spilled out, together with some of a silver Rolls Royce, some statuesque blondes and at least one minor pop star.

Bodie took it all in and then leant sideways, eyebrow raised, smirk firmly in place. “Sure you won’t change your mind, sunshine?” One chance, Bodie was going to give Doyle one chance to keep this the same as always.

Doyle seemed to appreciate it. His shoulders relaxed and his gaze softened as he smiled at Bodie and made a show of regret. “Nah, you enjoy yourself, mate. Just sneak me some champers for me thermos and I’ll be fine.”

******

Outside Cowley’s office it was suddenly just the two of them, and Bodie was unsurprised when Doyle grabbed his arm and halted them both in the corridor.

“Listen, I know you’re wondering what that was about...” Doyle trailed off, scratched his nose, and Bodie stood there. A Doyle this self-conscious had his curiosity piqued.

“It’s just... It’s Angela, all right? I promised I’d take her down to visit her dad this week, if I could.”

Bodie tried to ignore the slide of ice into his stomach. He’d been right. Of course he’d been right.

“And if I get surveillance then I’ll be on shifts. Her dad’s not been well and she doesn’t—”

“Whatever, Doyle.” He wrenched his arm free with a viciousness he hated himself for but couldn’t quite control.

“Bodie, wait...” Doyle made another grab for his sleeve but no way. No fucking way. Bodie danced neatly out of his path and turned, arms wide, fuck-you attitude firmly in place.

“Doyle, I don’t give a monkey’s. I do give a monkey’s that you get your head out from under her skirt and keep it on the job, eh? There’s a good lad. At least while you’re on shift with me. And then when you’re off shift.” He put a deliberate sneer on the last two words and rather enjoyed the flinch they produced. “You can cut your balls off and hand them to her, her dad, and her entire fucking clan for all I care.”

“You don’t mean that, Bodie.” The hurt in Doyle’s voice surprised him, and it took the steam right out of his anger. Which pissed him off, so the bite in his own voice stayed sharp.

He stepped up close and looked Doyle up and down once. Doyle’s jaw was clenched tight, his eyes were ridiculously intense and fixed on Bodie, and his hands were telltale fists at his sides. Bodie shook his head and jabbed a finger into his partner’s chest, rocking him back a little. “You have no fucking idea about me and what I mean, Doyle.”

With that, he turned on his heel and headed for the squadroom.

As a parting shot, it wasn’t bad at all.

As the last thing he would say to Doyle for a very long time, it left something to be desired.

******

“CI5, eh? Doubt they’ll want you back now, Brady or Bodie or whatever your name is. You just stay right where you are and keep my wine cellar warm a while longer; there’s a good boy. I’ll tell you what, I’m feeling kind-hearted today, so you break your chains and you can help yourself to whatever you find down here. I’ll even give you a tip, shall I? There’s a ten thousand pound Chateau Lafite four feet to your left. It’s yours if you can drag your broken carcass there before nightfall.”

******

“Well?”

“Well what, 4.5?”

“Have we bloody heard anything? Sir.”

“I do not care to repeat myself, 4.5!”

“Sir—”

“Ach, go home. You’re no good to me or anyone in this state. Go home, laddie. You know damn well I’ll call you if anything turns up.”

“Like a body in the fucking Thames, you mean? With all the labels cut off? Sir. Sorry, sir.”

“Home, 4.5. Now.”

******

There were some things in life a man just knew. Especially a man who’d been through as many conflicts and makeshift hospital tents as Bodie. Whether sliding wounded comrades off his shoulders, getting bandaged and stitched himself, or holding the hand of a raving friend through a hole in a mosquito net, Bodie knew a thing or two about pain. And about dying.

So when his pain actually stopped, he knew enough not to feel grateful. Though some measure of relief was inevitable. Just because he knew about pain did not mean he wanted to live with it. Especially not with the excruciating levels a crowbar, a sick fuck and some electric wires had managed. No, much better not to feel his legs and his pelvis anymore.

He squinted at a cracked and dirty window high up on the left. He could still see vague outlines of things so he gathered himself and tried to concentrate...four right? Or was it five? Five days. God, maybe six. Not that it fucking mattered anymore. No more drop-offs, no cavalry over the hill, no puns over crappy cups of tea at the crack of dawn. Six it was, and all out for a golden duck. No stumps, no bails, no...

Damn. He shifted, his chain rattled and a slither of something sharp and hot spiked through his right hip. So much for the pain being gone. But at least it kept him focused, less likely to drift....

 _I’m fucking suffocating here, Bodie! Mate, I’m sorry, I am. I just can’t...shit. Look, it was a lark, yeah? We always said that. God, you always said that. You were the one, after that first time, the one who got in my face and told me on pain of death not to give up the birds on account of anything we might do. You remember that, Bodie? Now you tell me, when was the last time you took a bird out to dinner, eh? To the pictures, a club? Hell, to a fucking cricket match, even? You went and started giving stuff up for me without saying a dicky bird, and I can’t...you’re my partner, my best mate, and you’re scaring the crap out of me. You can’t give things up for me, Bodie. I will fucking destroy you for it. So we are going to stop doing this, mate. We have to._

But apparently his mind was going to drift with or without any pain. And wasn’t that just the kick in the teeth? Of the thousand scenes his brain could pick to bring him some comfort as it sluggishly fired and snapped through the last of his memories, it had to pick the one where Doyle left him.

******

Doyle is there, in a suit that doesn’t fit and a pair of shiny shoes Bodie would bet money on him never wearing again. Bodie himself is in a suit that fits like a glove and shoes he had custom made years ago. So it’s ironic that on today of all days, Bodie looks the part more than Doyle. Doyle is walking slowly towards him. Bodie can see his face, and just for a second that face looks up, with a half smile, half-scowl, and it’s wholly for him. Only it’s not though, and it really doesn’t matter because suddenly they’re side by side, but Doyle is looking at someone else, a woman on his right, and the smile Bodie plastered on for all to see and bear witness to is stretching tighter and tighter and tighter....

******

“...’st man. Was s’posed...be best man.”

“Bodie!”

Someone touches him, moves him, and he screams.

But only on the outside. On the inside he’s laughing, fit to be tied.

 _All dressed up and no one to blow._

******

“Whatever the fuck you’re doing it’s not working!”

“Sir, if you could wait—”

“I am not waiting anywhere but here! Just... Christ, all right, all right. Bodie mate, I’m outside. Right outside the doors, yeah?”

Bodie had no idea why Doyle was lying to him like that. Wasn’t outside at all. Was off on his bloody honeymoon while Bodie was stuck in some kind of literal purgatory, hallucinating up a storm. Complete with white lights in his eyeballs and way too many people pushing and shoving at him. He had no real idea where he was anymore and no energy to expend worrying about it. Didn’t matter. It could be heaven, could be hell, could be a box in the ground for all he cared. Just as long as they all got a move on and stopped being so fucking loud and hands on about everything...

******

It’s a kitchen somewhere—Doyle’s, yeah, Doyle’s kitchen. That’s where he took the mug out of Doyle’s hand, put it on the counter and just stepped in. In and in, until those green eyes went wide.

“Bodie...?” But Doyle didn’t push him back, didn’t knee him in the balls, didn’t yell and spit and punch Bodie’s teeth down his throat. Didn’t do anything, in fact, but breathe too loudly.

And then Ray swallowed. Once. And opened his mouth.

Bodie was there, finger on his partner’s lips. “Sshhh...”

Miraculously, Ray obeyed and Bodie had no choice but to lean in and kiss him as his reward.

Dry, chaste, and little more than a press of mouth on mouth, Bodie remembers the moment it all changed, the moment he stopped wondering if he should stop and knew that he couldn’t. It was when Doyle lowered his jaw and pulled Bodie’s tongue into his mouth.

The jolt of lust to his groin physically hurt it was so instant. Bodie rocked back on his heels, hissing in a sharp breath when their mouths separated.

But Doyle was still there. Smiling. Fucking _smiling_ at him, the cocky bastard. “Easy, tiger. Where do you think you’re going?”

Said as a purr, as if Doyle had been seducing Bodie all his born days, when not thirty seconds back Bodie had feared for his very life and balls.

Two could play at that game, then. Bodie stepped in again. Hard. He trapped Doyle against the counter, even bending him over it and almost into the kettle.

“Watch it, Bodie, you great...”

“We do this, Ray, and I don’t want to fucking hear about it. It changes nothing outside of these four walls.”

“So we’ll just be each other’s dirty little secret, then?”

Doyle was trying to be scornful, Bodie knew that. But there was a waver in his voice, a wild concentration in his gaze as it fixed on Bodie’s face. Bodie was momentarily and bizarrely reminded of a deer in headlights.

“Something like that,” said Bodie. He leaned in for one more kiss, pulling Doyle back upright with the slow, sweet suction of it. Christ.

“Bodie, I...”

The one thing Bodie did not want Doyle to do was talk. If he let Doyle talk, there was a chance he’d hear words like _no_ , _get off_ , and _what the fuck are we doing_. So he did the one thing he knew, without question, would always always shut a man up.

He broke the kiss and went to his knees, ignoring the sharp dig of cold tiles as he did so.

“Bodie! What the... _Christ_.”

Bodie had Doyle’s zip down and Doyle’s rapidly stiffening cock in his hands.

He took a moment to just look and appreciate the significance of that. He knew, he fucking _knew_. All those come hither glances, all those times Ray had draped himself every which way over Bodie on the pretence of being drunk. The times Bodie had caught the charge between them when Doyle looked his way a beat too long. The twitch in his pulse and his blood every single damn time had been right on the money, as always when it came to anything to do with Raymond Doyle—CI5 agent, scruffy toe-rag, and apparently, willing player for both teams.

Bodie risked a glance up, but Doyle was gone. His head was tilted back, his eyes were closed, and the long, lovely line of his throat was perfectly exposed. Doyle’s hands had already found Bodie’s hair and were carding through it in anticipation.

Bodie shut his eyes and smirked before he closed his mouth around Doyle and took him down.

******

“...believe how fuckin’ sick of Anson and his cigars I am. So if you could wake up and save me from lung cancer, that would be grand. Failing that, I may tell Cowley to stick his assignments where the sun doesn’t shine.

“I mean it, Bodie. So you fuckin’ wake up now, all right? Otherwise on your head be it when they find his corpse floating face down with a...with a fuckin’ ash tray sticking out of his arse... Christ. Look, just wake up. Please, I’m fucking losing it here, mate. I see the looks, Bodie. The Cow, the others–even Murph. Everyone’s skirting around me like I’m going to go off in their faces any second. Mind you, I almost did last week. Jax asked if I had the key to your locker so that he could use that sweatshirt you always keep in there, and I just about ripped him—”

“...up. Shut...up, Ray. Fuck. So...”

“Bodie? Bloody hell, Bodie? Nurse! Help! Can I get some help in here? He fucking spoke! Come _on_...”

******

Pressure. And thirst. Thirst and pressure. That’s what it was to come back. He couldn’t move so much as an eyelash, couldn’t get his cracked dry lips to mouth the word water, couldn’t move his hand from under the weight pressing it down. So he went down again, back to where water and weight didn’t matter, didn’t hurt.

The next time he came back, he swam all the way, broke surface like a new born with what he thought was a yell, but turned out to be a sigh when he finally got his eyes open.

He blinked his dry, scratchy eyes as much as he could and looked around, his heart far too loud and erratic in his ears. Hospital. Check. No great surprises there. Explained the hiss-beep he’d been hearing in his head for the last God knew how long, and why every point of contact from his body to the bed felt thin and wasted and sore. He was by himself, as in a private room. Which CI5 agents often got. But no flowers, no cards, no dirty mags and no grapes made Bodie swallow hard past the rock in his throat. How long? How fucking _long_ had he been here?

He struggled to raise his head, open his mouth and just get someone the fuck in here now...but nothing went to his muscles and after a minute it seemed pointless. Then his eyes got heavy, and the easiest thing in the world was to just slip back under.

******

The next time he opened his eyes it was better. No gasping, no screaming in his head. Just a slow return up through the layers to something approaching wakefulness. The only thing with him from before was pressure. And in the same place, too. His right hand. The hiss-beep was gone, though, so God alone knew what new fangled contraption they had him wired up to.

“Bodie? God. _Bodie_.”

Not a contraption then. Doyle.

Bodie opened his mouth, but nothing came out. So he did what he always did when faced with a Doyle he didn’t know how to talk to. He tried to smile.

And Doyle’s face did the strangest thing, right in front him. It went down, disappeared from sight, and then came back up wet and crumpled.

“Ray...”

Somehow, despite all the crap and confusion and bitterness and rage he’d gone through because of this man, it seemed fitting that word should be his first.

And said in comfort as well.

“Just...” A sleeve swept noisily across Doyle’s face before the pressure on Bodie’s hand suddenly eased. Ray lurched up. “I’ll get someone, okay? I’ll...you wait, all right? You fucking wait this time and I’ll get someone.”

He tried, he did. But he couldn’t open his eyes by the time Doyle got back with others. He felt their hands, heard their voices – heard Doyle swearing a blue streak at one point. But he just couldn’t get his brain to make his mouth work. Not even when some sadistic bastard peeled his eyelids back and shone a light in. If he could’ve said fuck off there and then he would have. So he stopped struggling and went back to sleep because, no worries, he was coming back up.

******

No Doyle the next time, but a lovely nurse was smiling at him and holding his hand to take his pulse, so that was all right.

And then a day later he was actually awake before Doyle walked in with grapes and lucozade.

And it was as awkward as fuck.

“So...how are you feeling?”

This from Doyle after two minutes of pulling a thread from the sheet and winding it round his fingers.

Bodie cleared his throat. “Fine.”

A nod. More thread pulling. Jesus, this was worse than those first days of wary suspicion and nostril-flaring on both sides.

“Look, Doyle—”

“Bodie, I—”

Doyle’s head went down and he rubbed his hand around the back of his neck. When his head came back up, there was a small smile playing on his lips. “You first, mate.”

Bodie cleared his throat again. He hated that he had to do that for every other sentence, and that his voice when it made it out sounded like it came from a ninety-year-old who’d just run a marathon.

“I was just...” He trailed off. What was he just? He already knew the basics, no need to ask or talk about them. Cowley had been one of the first through the door once Bodie could stay awake for more than ten minutes at a stretch. And Bodie had been oddly touched and comforted by the sight of his boss and the wry ‘Good to have you with us again, 3.7’ Cowley had greeted Bodie with, as he’d perched on his bed, taken his glasses off, and filled him in.

So foolish really. A million to one chance that Bodie’s former drill sergeant would retire and walk into that gym at that moment in time to apply for a job. Bodie hadn’t even seen him, but he’d seen Bodie, and then made a CI5 training crack to boot. The wrong ears had heard and that had been it. Bodie’s cover had been tight, but not that tight. Kruger, it turned out, was as paranoid as he was unobtrusive, and had put Bodie on the wrong end of chains in a basement within hours.

So no need or desire on Bodie’s part to bring any of that up with his partner. Wasn’t fucking relevant as far as he could see. They’d beaten him, tortured him for fun more than information, and he’d survived. End of story. He’d had worse in the Congo and had never seen the need to talk about it then, either.

Still...

“I was just going to ask about...about Kruger.” It felt odd to say the name aloud and strangely gratifying to see the flinch it produced in Doyle.

“What about him?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Doyle. Like how’s his health?” said Bodie, going for sarcasm rather than the energy of temper.

“Yeah...yeah. Sorry.” Doyle backtracking was a sight to see, and if Bodie’s face didn’t still hurt, his jaw would have dropped. “He’s helping with inquiries, Bodie. What do you want to hear? We’ve got him, we’re cracking him, and Cowley wants him with us as long as possible.”

At least until Bodie had been debriefed and gone over every sordid little detail, no doubt. He knew how the game was played, though he wasn’t particularly looking forward to it. It had been embarrassing yesterday when Cowley had arrived with a clipboard and a tape recorder early morning, and Bodie had managed to drift off and fall fast asleep after only five minutes.

Bodie narrowed his eyes at his partner as a thought struck him. “So how come you’re here? At, what, three-thirty on a Tuesday afternoon?” A pang of almost childish hurt and indignation stung his eyes. Fucking meds. But he still couldn’t stop himself. “Shouldn’t you be in there cracking him?” _On my behalf_ went unspoken. But Bodie knew they both heard it.

And then he stopped working himself up because he got a good look at Doyle’s right hand. Doyle breathed out and flexed his fingers slowly. Then he laid them palm down on the sheet, a fraction of an inch from Bodie’s. Bodie’s breath caught at more than the bruises and scrapes swelling the joints. All of him, head to aching toe, just wanted to inch his fingertips forward and _touch_.

The moment held, quiet and heavy, as they both breathed and stared at the back of Doyle’s messed-up hand.

“I...um...might’ve done me own bit of cracking first,” said Doyle, low and soft, voice almost breaking.

Bodie swallowed. “Yeah?”

Doyle looked up, eyes suspiciously bright. “Had to, mate. Fucking _had_ to.”

And there it was, only it was Doyle’s hand over his, the lightest press of his palm over the back of Bodie’s fingers as their eyes locked. Bodie kept his eyes steady on Doyle, didn’t let his own gaze so much as flicker down. “So you’re...?”

“Off the case. Spectacularly. I’m supposed to be in a squat in Bethnal Green watching a potting shed.”

And fuck if the giggles didn’t hit at that. Bodie ended up holding his side and swearing as Doyle hiccupped and tried to shush him. It didn’t work, and suddenly awkward and confused disappeared in a wave of warmth and familiarity Bodie should never have let sex get in the way of.

Such were their lives together. Melodramatic, inane, ridiculous and dangerous, all in the one breath.

“Enough, you tart.” Bodie winced at the pull on his ribs.

Doyle hiccuped to a halt and wiped his eyes.

“Don’t know what I’m laughing for. I’m the one who’s in the sodding squat. You’re the one who gets to lie here like Lord Muck every day.”

It caught in the air. So far there’d been no jokes between them about Bodie’s condition. Not one.

Bodie looked at Doyle, took in the way his chest had stilled. He licked his lips and cleared his throat. “Someone’s got to do it, mate. Can’t have all those bed baths from the lovely Samantha going to waste now, can we?”

Doyle nodded, jaw working a little. “Absolutely not.” Their gazes locked and there was another tiny shift of gears, another click back into the way of things. Doyle rubbed his neck and got to his feet. He let out a huge put-upon sigh. “I should be off.” He cocked his thumb at the door. “I’ll see myself out, shall I? No, no, don’t get up.”

“Bastard. And no nicking the silver on the way out.”

Doyle grinned, turned at the door and threw a grape at him. Bodie felt better than he had in a long time.

******

Bodie’s good mood lasted right up until the door reopened half an hour later to admit his doctor, CI5’s doctor, and Cowley.

“Blimey,” exclaimed Bodie faintly. “Sir. Morris.” He nodded to both CI5 men. “How long have I got then?”

The doctor from the hospital blinked, clearly taken aback. “Mr Bodie! I can assure you—”

“Twenty-four hours, Bodie. Got your affairs in order?” This deadpan from Dr Morris, clearly more at home with the CI5 way of things.

“Absolutely. Leaving it all to your mum for services rendered.”

“Bodie...” chided Cowley.

“Sir.”

“You’re frightening Dr Howell, Bodie.”

“Yes, sir. Wouldn’t want that, sir.”

“Quite. Dr Howell?” Cowley turned to the hospital doctor, who suddenly looked serious as he studied his clipboard. Cowley took his glasses off, Morris fidgeted, and Bodie desperately wanted someone to make another crack. Anything to keep away the inevitability of whatever the fuck was coming.

Where was the need to fall asleep every ten minutes when a person really needed it?

“As you now know, Mr Bodie, you were brought in unconscious thirteen days ago, suffering severe head trauma, dehydration, a hairline fracture to the right femur, and a broken left tibia.” The doctor cleared his throat and Bodie braced himself. “There were also extensive burn marks on your upper thighs, some bruising around both kidneys, and lacerations to your feet and ankles.”

The broken glass. God, he’d forgotten that. They’d thrown him socked-feet first through a plate-glass window right at the very beginning.

“It took us some time to get your breathing stabilised when you were brought in, due to bruising around your ribs and suspected fractures of at least two of them. Consequently, we’ve been monitoring you closely since you woke up and started breathing without the aid of a respirator. But I’m pleased to tell you that we’re not anticipating any further problems in regards to that, Mr Bodie. As to the rest...”

He glanced at Cowley, received a nod and continued. “The cast on your left leg should come off in a couple of weeks, the taping around your thigh and ribs a little earlier. Horrible as it sounds, the immobility of your time in a coma actually helped your other injuries.” He smiled, and Bodie blinked and let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “It won’t be instant, Mr Bodie, and it won’t be easy, but we do expect you to make a full recovery.”

Bodie nodded, tight-lipped and not entirely sure how to take the news. Cast, bandages and bruises aside, he’d been fairly certain that he was shaking off the effects of a pipe to the head and the ensuing coma. But his weakness bothered him—scared him, truth be told. He’d yet to make it upright and to the bathroom unaided. And each time he’d tried, he hadn’t even managed to stand for more than a minute before having to lower himself back onto the bed as wavering leg muscles threatened to unceremoniously dump him on his backside.

“Bodie, your biggest problem is going to be muscle wastage.” This from Morris, almost as if he were reading Bodie’s mind. The man’s lips quirked, and Bodie found himself relaxing, even as he wondered what awful rigours of PT were in store for him. “Which is where I come in.”

“I bet you do,” Bodie managed dryly.

“You know the drill,” continued Morris, almost as if Bodie hadn’t spoken. “You’ll be discharged from here, and then it’ll be Wentworth and my tender mercies for a nice long while.”

Bodie did know the drill. All too well. He was not going to be able to manage alone once he was discharged from hospital. So that meant an enforced stay at the Scrubs—the less than affectionate nickname they all had for the convalescent home CI5 and other intelligence services used.

Bodie groaned aloud as Morris, the sadistic bugger, actually rubbed his hands together. “Now don’t look like that, 3.7. We’ll make sure your legs are nice and strong again before we send them off on a ten-mile hike in the rain.”

Bodie faked a sarcastic smile at him and then turned to Cowley, who so far had been merely an observer in all the medical back and forth. “How long, sir?”

The room went quiet as all eyes turned to Cowley, and Bodie wished the doctors would just get the hell out and leave him and his boss to do this in private.

Cowley took off his glasses and Bodie sobered at the kindness he suddenly saw when the old man looked at him.

“Dr Howell is going to let you out of here in about three or four more days Bodie. And then Dr Morris and I are anticipating about a five to six week stay in Wentworth Hall.”

“Including—?”

“No.” A small smile twitched Cowley’s mouth. “Not including an extensive refresher course, 3.7.”

Bodie closed his eyes and let his head fall back on his pillows. Combat had nothing on what lay ahead. Nearly two months of mind-numbing boredom to be punctuated by bouts of sheer terror at the hands of Morris and his physical therapist cohorts. And then, just when he would be feeling halfway human again, Macklin and Towser to round it all off.

Lovely.

Morris looked at Cowley. “Well, if that’s all, sir, I’ll be getting back to Wentworth. Can’t stay here chatting with the likes of you, Bodie. I’ve got bed pans to empty, sponge baths to organise. All the trimmings.”

“Too kind.”

“I’ll keep the light on, 3.7.” Morris stepped forward to pat him on his cast, then nodded at Cowley and Howell and left.

At a look from Cowley, Dr Howell gazed at his clipboard again, gave Bodie a spiel about medication he was only half listening to, then he cleared his throat and also left the room.

Bodie looked at his boss expectantly, and sure enough, Cowley slid a small tape recorder out of his jacket’s inside pocket, together with a sheaf of papers. He unfolded his glasses, put them back on, then peered at Bodie over the top of them.

“Shall we see if you can manage to stay awake this time, 3.7?”

His tone was dry, kind and quiet, and Bodie felt a ridiculous prickle behind his eyes.

He swallowed, took a deep breath and hitched himself slowly up the bed. “Of course, sir.”

******

That evening, yet another surprise walked through Bodie’s hospital door.

“Angela.” It came out as a reflex more than a greeting. He pulled himself up a little straighter, hating both the way his heart suddenly sped up and the way he was sitting there in pale grey pyjamas and uncombed hair.

She half-stepped forward, smiling awkwardly.“Bodie. How are you? It’s...it’s good to see you again. Ray’s um...he’s just parking the car, he’ll be here in a minute.”

He wished he could say it was good to see her too. Still, her smile seemed genuine enough, so he tried one back. She looked relieved and stepped forward a little more certainly. Angela Jones. Just the kind of person Bodie always thought his partner might end up with one day. Small, dark and pretty—but not in that ostentatious look-at-me-way Bodie was always drawn to. She dressed like the primary school teacher she was, looked happy enough in her layered skirt and shellfish earrings, and clearly thought the world of one Ray Doyle.

She smiled again, and Bodie relaxed. He really was going to have to get used to her, and nothing gave a person an edge—albeit an awkward one—more than a hospital bed. And small talk was fine. In fact, small talk with someone non-medical and non-CI5 might be just the thing. He’d felt vaguely out of sorts since Cowley’s visit, and it didn’t take an ink blot to work out why. Rehashing every detail of his ordeal for nearly three hours had done little for his desire to put it all behind him. So to keep dark thoughts at bay, he decided to look upon Angela as an unexpected bonus. He took a deep breath and sat up a little straighter as she came to sit on the white plastic chair next to the bed.

“Good to be seen again. Be even nicer if I could get seen outside of these four walls.”

She nodded. “A person can forget what natural sunlight feels like in these places. I remember when my dad was in last month—”

“Nothing serious, I hope?”

‘Piles’ she mouthed, smiling again, “and a serious case of wounded pride, I think. Too many years on hard benches.”

Bodie raised his eyebrow.

“Rugby coach,” she explained.

“Ah, more of a cricket man meself.”

“Really? Now there’s a game I’ve never understood.”

“Well, in that case, allow me...”

And just like that ten minutes passed, and Bodie felt strangely lighter than he had all day...

“He missed you, you know.”

...until she brought the whole chit-chat thing skidding to an uncomfortable halt by mentioning the one person they’d so skilfully been avoiding.

Bodie licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry. He had no idea how much she knew about Doyle and him. If she knew how far their partnership had gone once upon a time. If she knew how much he’d hated her for pulling it back.

“Yeah?” It was all he could think of to say.

She looked up from where she was playing with the straps of the handbag on her lap. She smiled, but this one was clearly an effort. “He was so quiet, Bodie. I...I couldn’t get him to talk or even eat properly. God, it was like he was—”

“Sodding mini-van drivers! If you don’t know the length of your own flippin’ car, then don’t try and park it a space the size of a motorbike. Hello, love. Don’t listen to a word this reprobate tells you. Brought you some grapes, Bodie, no pips. Oh, and a Golfer’s Weekly because they were all out of Playboys.”

And just like that, Doyle was there. He burst through the door mid-shout to drop a kiss on Angela’s head and a bag on Bodie’s bed. All spit, temper, shining eyes, and about a million miles from whatever Angela had been about to spill.

“What?” asked Doyle, his grin faltering slightly as he looked between the two.

Angela caught Bodie’s eyes in an odd look of panic, and a fierce stab of resentment shot through him. Who the fuck was she to think of them as co-conspirators in anything involving the man standing at her shoulder?

Still...

“Just killing time till my grapes got here, sunshine. And Angela at least does not go on about bloody carparks.”

“Bloke was an idiot. He had no space at all and was trying to—yeah, all right, shut up.”

The look and eye-roll between Bodie and Angela was genuine this time. It almost hurt to exchange something that fond and familiar with the person who’d basically ripped him in two. But he was back together now—relatively speaking. His heart was safely stashed under lock and key where it belonged, and he could do this. He could show them all and fucking do this.

“So where are you two lovebirds off to tonight, then?” he asked.

Doyle scratched his nose, looked at Angela then away. For her part, Angela’s mouth opened and closed before she too looked away. Bodie wondered if the coma had somehow taken away his social skills.

Angela tucked a loose strand of hair behind her hair and bit her bottom lip. “We didn’t have anything planned really. Ray’s just dropping me off at home, and then he’s coming back here, I think.”

Bodie blinked and looked at his partner.

“Yeah... I thought I could read you the Golfer’s Weekly. Steal your grapes and regale you with some office gossip.”

Bodie didn’t miss the way Angela’s jaw tightened as she looked down at her hands in her lap. Ray, standing behind her, did miss it. An unexpected—and totally unwanted—wave of pity and anger washed through Bodie. Ray always did this with the people who got too close, too enamoured of his charm. Seemingly oblivious to the effect he had on those in his orbit, he went his own sweet way, hunting out his gratification first and foremost. Every sodding time.

“Nah, you go to the pictures, mate.” He hauled himself up in bed a little higher, ignoring the twinge in his thigh. “I’d rather have my grapes all to meself, thank you very much.”

His gaze locked with Doyle’s for a very long moment, and Doyle actually took a half-step towards him, right arm rising up and out. Bodie flinched at the thought of whatever insanity Doyle might be about to say or do in front of her. Which hurt and made him angry all over again.

“Seriously,” he ground out, eyes never leaving his partner’s even as his voice husked out on him. “Go to the pictures, Doyle.”

A beat more, and then a muscle in Doyle’s own jaw seemed to lock in place as he nodded, more to himself it seemed, than to Bodie.

“Ray?”

Bodie had almost forgotten she was in the room. And from the way Doyle snapped his head round, he guessed he wasn’t he only one.

Doyle cleared his throat.“Okay. Why not? Pictures it is, then.”

Bodie watched him place a hand under Angela’s elbow as she scraped back the chair and got to her feet. Doyle smiled at her when she turned to looked at him, but his smile dropped away as soon as she turned to Bodie.

“You don’t mind if I don’t bring him back, then?”

Bodie couldn’t help but admire the tilt of her head and the bravery of the sentiment. She wasn’t stupid and had to be feeling the undercurrents swirling in the room. But she was still going to take the bit between her teeth and be herself. And once again, despite everything, Bodie couldn’t help but like her.

“Nah. He doesn’t match anything in the room anyway. Take him away, would you?”

“Oi, you. And you. Stop talking about me like I’m not here.”

The smile Angela flashed Bodie was a grateful one, the one Doyle gave him was a little less certain, a little harder to define.

“Tomorrow, yeah?” Doyle said quietly, resting a hand lightly on Bodie’s blanket covered right ankle when Angela was at the door. “I’m on driving duty with visiting protocol. Should be done about six.”

Bodie wanted to tell him no, puncture his expectations and push him back that little bit further. But there was something about that hand on his ankle...

“I’ll be here. If I’m not out dancin’ the night away.”

Doyle nodded, stroking his thumb across Bodie’s foot twice, and then he was gone.

Bodie ate the grapes and played all the solitaire a man could stomach that night. If he felt the emptiness of falling on his own sword, he knew he had no one to blame but himself.

******

As it turned out, he didn’t see Doyle the next day. Or the next. Jax and Murphy came round to keep him entertained with the most ridiculous guff about Anson and an amorous guard dog called Billy. He didn’t want to ask because he suspected he might not like the answer; busy, a night on the town with the boys. Or out with Angela, which he knew Jax would take delight in imagining in as much lascivious detail as possible. But in the end, Murphy came to his rescue with a hand on his shoulder and a quiet ‘Doyle says hello, by the way. He’s ended up on some kind of 24 hour watch detail with the Israeli Amabassador’s mother-in-law, poor bastard.’

Bodie nodded and tried not to look relieved at the news. Murphy pressed his palm in a little harder, so he wasn’t sure he quite managed.

“That’ll teach him to thump important villains, eh?”

Bodie looked up at that, but Murphy’s smile was inexplicably kind, and he found himself responding with a small one of his own.

“Yeah. Stupid sod.”

For once he was grateful for his painkillers. He didn’t palm a single one. He simply used them to make the itching under his cast and bandages stop, and to make the time pass in these deep, dreamless naps that left him feeling like he needed another one whenever he came to.

 _You know what? Don’t tell us a thing, my good man. Marcus here has missed his box of tricks in recent months, he’s only too happy to give them a proper workout again. Just lie back and think of England or the Queen. Or whatever gets you types through this. There, there. Just hold nice and still now. All be over soon..._

“Bodie?”

Doyle. Not Marcus. A bed, not a floor. And no chains anywhere in sight.

Bodie blinked awake as fast as the fuzz in his brain would let him. Christ, the sooner he came off these pills the better. Sleeping to pass the time was one thing, but waking up halfway through their influence was horrible. And he certainly didn’t need the jangled nightmares that often came with the higher doses.

“All right?”

By the time he was all the way upright on the bed, Doyle was there, sitting on it with him, voice disconcertingly close and concerned.

Bodie cleared his throat and deliberately didn’t look at where Doyle’s hand rested on his right forearm. “4.5. Was wondering when the cat would drag you back in.”

He didn’t mean for it to come out as harsh and petulantly as it did, and blamed his brain for still being a good ten seconds behind his mouth. He of all people knew Doyle had an unpredictable job to do, and it was ridiculous to feel his absence so keenly after only three days.

Doyle sat back a little.“Yeah, sorry about that. Would have been here earlier if I could. Bloody Cowley.”

Bodie wondered if perhaps he was still napping deeply. Doyle sounded weirdly contrite, and for something he had no control over.

“Bloody mother-in-laws more like.”

Doyle’s turn to blink, then smile. “Murph mentioned that, eh? God, you do not want to know how many Marks and Sparks I’ve been in over the last three days. Who knew they sold industrial strength knickers in black lace?”

It was pretty weak as rib-ticklers went, but it still pulled a smile out of Bodie. He really had been by himself too much the last few days.

“So...” Doyle got off the bed and looked around the small room. “Ready to break out of prison, mate?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” The bandaging had finally come off his right thigh, and he’d been promised his ribs for tomorrow. Aside from the cast on his left leg, the thought of being able to get at all that itching was blissful. “You know, I’ve forgotten what a normal bath feels like.”

“Tell me about it.” Doyle waved a hand in front of his nose.

“Oi. Less of that. I’ll have you know the lovely Samantha does not skimp on the soap one bit.”

“I bet she doesn’t.”

They grinned, one at the other, and Bodie felt another ridiculous burst of gratitude at still being around to have this.

“Anyway,” said Doyle, gesturing to a holdall on the floor by the door. “I found this in your locker and I reckoned it would do for whatever rubbish you need to take out of here. And while I remember, I should probably give you this...” Doyle paused and unhooked a key from his key ring. He laid it on the cabinet next to Bodie’s bed. “I’m pretty sure you won’t need it for tomorrow, but just in case, take it anyway. The heating will be on and you know where everything is. So just make yourself a cuppa and wait for me to get back from whatever pit Cowley sees fit to...um, Bodie? You with me?”

Bodie closed his mouth with a sharp click of teeth on teeth, genuinely at a loss. “Not in the slightest, mate.”

Doyle ran a hand through his hair, gestured with a thumb to the bag and then back to Bodie. He sighed. “You mean nobody told you about tomorrow?”

“What, other than Morris, the Scrubs, and bedpans at dawn?”

“No, you prat. As in me, my place, and baths whenever you fancy.”

At that point Bodie wondered if he was still asleep and dreaming. And he felt more than a twinge of annoyance at whatever nonsense Doyle was having fun with at his expense.

“Look, mate. I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to say here—

“Bodie...”

—but ha fucking ha and just leave it, yeah? Because Morris and the Scrubs are bad enough without you—

“Bodie!”

Doyle was glaring at him, breath coming out hard and fast. “God, will you shut up for five minutes! You’re not going to the Scrubs. The flat is two-bedroomed and Cowley has okayed for you to get discharged into my tender mercies instead of Morris’s, you pillock. So shut the fuck up, pack your sodding holdall, and I’ll pick you up at 3 o’clock tomorrow.”

It punctured Bodie like a nail in a tyre. Even as Doyle stood there fuming. No Scrubs, no Morris—well, not every day at any rate. No hospital food for weeks on end, with no one but snotty MI6 types to talk to. No barracks-style sharing, no bleak countryside to look out on, no threadbare blankets. Instead he’d have a warm bed of his own, a telly with a clear picture, a frying pan and a dozen takeaways at his disposal, and most importantly, Doyle to talk to and annoy at the end of every day.

He swallowed hard, unaccountably touched, and said the first thing that came to mind. “Mate, no. What about Angela?”

Probably not the wisest choice of words. Especially from the way Doyle stilled, his breathing steadily evening out to calm again.

“What about her?” Doyle asked, brow furrowed slightly. He took a step closer to Bodie’s bed, then seemed to catch himself before he could take another one. “Bodie, we don’t...we’re not bloody married or anything. It’s just...y’know...me. I mean, in the flat.”

Bodie nodded and found a loose blanket thread to look at. If Doyle’s voice got any kinder he’d have to punch something. And it was undoubtedly not the time to mention the unsettling hallucination his brain had insisted was true for at least three days after he had come to.

The silence hung, hard and heavy, and he knew he would have to be the one to pull them back to familiar territory.

“You got any bacon?” He waited until he heard how steady his voice was before looking up. “Because I am not coming if you haven’t got any bacon.”

“Smoked streaky, mate. In your honour.” There was something like relief in Doyle’s face. “And sausages. And a leftover Easter egg.”

“In that case you’re on.”

Probably the stupidest decision Bodie had ever made. But with Doyle looking like he’d been handed Christmas early, regrets could bloody well wait their turn.

******

Regrets of course, when they came, came like gangbusters. To begin with, it was undeniably awkward. Neither of them were used to sharing close quarters without the need to watch something through binoculars, sleep in shifts, or take cover against the threat of detection. Bodie was also as weak as the proverbial kitten, which he hated, and which he was pretty sure that, given enough time, he could make Doyle hate, too.

He could dress himself—thank fuck—just about shower as long as he sat down to do it and kept the lower half of his left leg outside the bath (a small plastic stool appeared wordlessly on the second day). His appetite was also thankfully coming back.

But on the downside, in that first week or so before his physio regime kicked in, he got as wobbly as a newborn colt if he took more than ten steps at a time, and dizzy if he stayed upright for more than a few minutes. He also seemed to be suffering from a weird kind of insomnia now that he’d left hospital and those lovely strong painkillers behind. It was a wired but tired sensation, which would wake him at three o’clock in the afternoon, heart hammering in his chest with no nightmare to blame it on. And then leave him restless and wakeful at night with no energy to get up and do anything about it.

And it wasn’t as if Doyle was around constantly to take things out on either. Sparring with Doyle—physically and mentally—had always been one of the pleasures in life, something to keep him sane, on and off the job. But suddenly it was as if Doyle had been possessed by an ever helpful, barrel-carrying Saint Bernard. Whatever Bodie threw at him, he took. Verbally and even physically once, in the shape of a milk bottle at the kitchen wall in one memorable moment of growled frustration.

“Bodie! Just...stay still, will you? There’s glass everywhere and you’re in nothing but socks, you twat!”

And that had been it, the extent of Doyle’s anger. He’d even hunted down the cane Bodie refused to use, and told him to go and sit down in the lounge while he swept it up.

While he swept it up.

And then made Bodie a cup of tea and _brought it out to him_.

Jesus H.

Bodie should have been in seventh heaven, content to bask in Doyle’s placid blanket of caring and fuss. Somewhat annoyingly, he found it did nothing but wind him up. And the reason didn’t take a genius to work out. It wasn’t his partner, plain and simple. Every curse and thump of temper Doyle swallowed reminded Bodie of what he’d lost, how far they’d fallen. Which pissed him off, and made him goad Doyle into losing his rag even more. Which made Doyle twitch, retreat, and look even guiltier. Which took them right back to square fucking one.

And that was the key, wasn’t it? Guilt. Again, no ink blots were needed to see Doyle was busy eating himself alive for that throwaway switch of roles in Cowley’s office, and all that had subsequently come to pass in its wake.

As for Angela, Bodie didn’t have a clue. Doyle never spoke of her, and Bodie didn’t ask. He was pretty sure they were still going, judging by the number of times Doyle would wander into the hall to talk on the phone in hushed tones. But she never came round the flat. Bodie was puzzled at first. He kept waiting for the doorbell to ring, or for Doyle to toss him the remote and tell him not to wait up. But if he was seeing her, he was doing it around his work schedule and keeping it quiet. Which...fine. If Doyle wanted to turn her into the white elephant sitting on the coffee table night after night, Bodie could bide his time and hurl her in his partner’s face when the time was right.

The right time turned out to be the night before Bodie’s physio started in earnest. Doyle came in at the end of a long day with Jax, a six-pack, some takeaway, and a misguided attempt to make Bodie feel part of it all.

Doyle and Jax had been part of an excruciatingly painstaking stakeout of a gang of bullion thieves Bodie had been hearing about off and on since he’d been released. The final raid that day had gone like clockwork—even though Murphy had apparently ended up in a canal after being accosted by an irate elderly shopper. Or something.

Bodie wanted to enjoy the story and the moment, he really did, but there was too much shorthand going on between Doyle and Jax, too much glee at an op well done. Fuck, Doyle even finished two of Jax’s sentences and tossed him a wide-open grin along with another Heineken.

“Yeah, it all sounds great. Smooth as fucking clockwork. Doesn’t sound like I need to come back at all, does it, Ray?”

Just like that the good cheer evaporated. Jax’s smile slipped and he lowered his can to the table. He exchanged an uneasy glance across the kitchen table with Doyle and, oh yes, efuckingnough...

“Yeah,” said Bodie, warming to the task nicely. He tilted his chair back. “Maybe I’ll just limp around here the rest of me born days. I can play nanny to any nippers that might come along, while you ride off into the sunset with Angela. Or Jax. Or whoever the fuck. Or I could just be the charity case on the sofa, couldn’t I? Or better yet, in the basement. Yeah, got a basement, Ray? Got quite used to being chained in one of those.”

The noise when the can of Heineken hit the wall was much louder than the milk bottle had been. Maybe because of the accompanying roar from Doyle.

“Christ, but you are one selfish, stuck-up bastard! What the fuck is wrong with you, Bodie?” He was right in Bodie’s face, finger jabbing hard into his chest, body practically vibrating with anger.

“Oh, I don’t know, Doyle. How about the fact that I got tortured in a fucking basement so you could get your leg over? How about that, eh? Hope she was worth it, Doyle, hope she gives the best blow jobs in the entire—

The crack across his jaw knocked him off his chair. He lay there a moment, trying to work out if the woof of air knocked out of him was shock or pain. His heartbeat started settling and other than his jaw, it seemed to be shock. He hadn’t fallen on the side with all the damage done, which yeah, thank God for small mercies. He opened his eyes. Jax was nowhere in sight but Doyle was, breathing heavily, clenching and unclenching his fists, and looking down at Bodie like he’d just crawled out from under a rock.

“You bastard,” Doyle whispered, eyes wide and liquid. “I can’t believe you made me do that.”

Bodie rubbed his aching jaw and let his eyes close as Doyle stormed out of the kitchen and didn’t help him up.

******

Bodie got himself and the chair upright again. He needed the edge of the table to get all the way there, but he did it. He tested his weight, rocked from one foot to the other. A twinge or two, but no real damage done. Well, not physically anyway. Whether he could fix the mental and emotional cowpat he and Doyle were in up to their necks, was another matter.

He wasn’t sure if Doyle was even still in the flat, but when he went into the lounge, there he was. He was sitting on the sofa and staring at his hand while he flexed it in his lap.

“You shouldn’t have done that, Bodie.” Quiet, defeated.

Bodie sighed, eased himself off the doorjamb and limped slowly around the sofa to sit next to his partner. He leaned back, turned his head left towards Doyle just as Doyle turned his right.

“Yeah, I should.”

“Bodie...”

“Doy-ul...” Bodie sing-songed it back to him, eager to see a crack in the armour. But Doyle was looking morosely down at his hand again. Bodie shook his head. Christ, he was going to have to put this all together in actual say-aloud words, wasn’t he? He took a deep breath. “Look, mate. You and me?” He waved his finger between them. “In a firefight, on a stakeout, in a pub, ( _in a bed_ his brain just about kept behind his teeth) in an Operation Susie, we’re the best there is. Always have been. No one else I’d rather have guarding my back and you know it. No one else I’d rather down a pint with, either, or drag round the Brecon Beacons when it’s ten below and Macklin’s on our arses.” He did get a quirk of lips for that diabolical memory, and felt his own escape right back. “But sunshine, we’re just no good at the other stuff. Stuff like birds we’re serious about.” He dragged the words out, watched for the flinch, and almost shook his head at Doyle’s predictability when it came. He swallowed, a little more undone by what he had to say next. “And us. And Kruger.”

Doyle was looking at him now.

“What about them?” Doyle asked, voice steady, an odd mix of dread and anticipation in it.

And suddenly Bodie had the words, because really, what was he so afraid of? He’d been dying in agony on a basement floor less than a month ago. So telling Doyle how he felt about things? Should be like falling off a fucking log.

He smiled.

Doyle blinked.

“You were right, you know.” Bodie said. “I did change the rules. When you and me started up? I swear, I made that first move in your kitchen just to see the expression on your face.”

He got the arched eyebrow he’d expected for that, and raised a sheepish one of his own in reply.

“Yeah, well. Never said I was a saint, Doyle. But what can I say, sunshine, you got to me. The longer it carried on, the better it got, and the longer I wanted it to carry on. Christ, I started wanting things I’d never thought I’d want with anyone, started thinking I could have them, if I just...”

He broke that train of thought off sharpish. Talking about this was one thing, getting maudlin and wistful was something else.

“Anyway.” He waved a dismissive hand in the air between them. “You were right. I mean, to end things the way you did. I hated you for a time, mind. But I would never have done it, so it was good you pulled the plaster off. Quick, brutal and somewhat painful, but better for both of us in the long run.”

He paused. The rest wouldn’t take long, he’d got the important one said and out of the way. “As to Kruger. I know you think it’s all your fault, whether I blame you or not.” He leaned sideways. “And I don’t, by the way, mate. Not in the light of day. You caught me feeling monumentally sorry for myself back there. Just pissed off at you and the world in general for being all happy without me.” He held up a hand when Doyle opened his mouth to interrupt. “Look, that basement was one of those terrible, stupid things which fucking happens in our line of work sometimes. Truly. So stop walking around with a face like a wet weekend, start letting me annoy you on a regular basis again, and things will get much better between us. Believe me.”

Doyle was quiet for so long, Bodie started to fidget.

“Bloody hell. Say something, will you?” He was well aware he had yet to mention Angela.

So, of course, leave it to Doyle to dive straight in.

“I never left you for her. For Angela. I mean, I saw her, went out with her a couple of times when we were still pushing each other up against doors and walls every chance we got. But I didn’t finish things with you for her.”

“Then why did you?” It was Bodie’s turn to look at Doyle, sharp and steady.

“Because...” Doyle ran a hand through his hair before slapping it back down on his leg. “Because I forgot you’re an idiot when it comes to this kind of thing. As in using real fucking words to say what you want. All I could think was, he’s going to walk away. Any day. I mean shit, Bodie, you never said a word. You’d fuck me stupid, look at me like I was everything you’d ever wanted, and then zip yourself up and suggest a takeaway.”

“So you got in first,” said Bodie, dully aware of how spectacularly his and Doyle’s own natures had conspired against them.

Doyle looked at him, a little helplessly. “You know me and coming in last, Bodie. Never could stand it.”

It was Bodie’s turn to look at his hands now, resting on his knees. He nodded. A lot of things made sense now. Things he’d been too caught up in the misery and fury of rejection to see before. Doyle’s almost dogged pursuit of Angela, his determination to make it something in the face of Bodie’s supposed indifference.

Doyle’s hand suddenly arrived on his leg, just above his left knee.

“You’ll stay, though, right? Here?”

Doyle was so close, so wide-eyed and earnest, Bodie had to clench his hands into fists to stop them from reaching out to pull him those last few inches and line up their mouths just so.

He licked his lips, eyes still on Doyle’s.

“If you like,” Bodie managed.

Doyle squeezed down hard on his leg. “This isn’t pity, Bodie. Well, not entirely. And there’s no fucking reason for you to be in the Scrubs when you can be here. I just don’t want you...or us...to be... _fuck_...”

Enough.

Bodie knocked his knee against Doyle’s.

“You going to let me piss you off?”

Doyle’s head jerked up at that. He spent a while looking Bodie over, and his smile took its time coming through. “Only if you stop trying so hard to do it,” he said eventually. Doyle knocked Bodie’s knee back and insane though it was, Bodie’s heart skipped at the contact.

Bodie swallowed hard. “Deal,” he said. And then oh fuck, it didn’t matter. None of Ray’s or his good intentions, and words and deeds, and clearing the air, and putting the past behind them mattered one whit, because Ray was leaning towards him and Bodie’s own palm was going up, up, up, threading into those curls and just pulling that gorgeous fucking mouth _in_...

To his credit, it was Bodie who broke them apart. Not that he wanted to, because that kiss...fuck, that kiss was everything he’d forgotten Ray could do to him. A tease of tongue and Ray’s fingers on his jaw, widening both their mouths just enough to make Bodie fucking whimper five seconds in. Halfway between brutal and soft, it was one of those rare kisses worth doing for its own sake, and not just for getting something undone or unzipped.

Then the heel of Ray’s hand found Bodie’s groin, pressing in, and Bodie’s cock hardened in an instant.

Hating Angela and Doyle with every fibre of his being. Bodie’s hands went to Doyle’s chest and pushed back. No way he was starting down that path again. Not when they were still finding their way back to best mates and partners.

“Bodie...fuck...” Chest heaving, Doyle looked a wreck. A gorgeous, swollen-lipped wreck.

Bodie was busy getting his own breathing back to normal. He shifted back and adjusted his trousers. “Wish we could, but we can’t, sunshine.”

That broke the spell.

Doyle shot to his feet, hands tugging his curls. “Christ. I can’t... I have to... God, I’m such a fucking idiot. I have to go. I have to go, Bodie.”

Bodie just watched as Doyle pivoted this way and that on the lounge carpet. He spied his keys and leapt forward to sweep them off the coffee table. Then he yanked his jacket off the armchair and left without a backward glance, letterbox reverberating in his wake.

The clock was suddenly incredibly loud.

So much for clearing the air. Bodie let his head fall back and his eyes close. He’d get up. Any second now he would get up, find his cane—which he only ever used if Doyle wasn’t around—wipe the beer off the wall, take his pills and go get his rest like a good little soldier. Only for now, he thought he might just sit there and wonder what they could fuck up next.

******

But Bodie was in for a surprise the following morning. He’d chosen beer over painkillers in the end, but he still hadn’t slept well, tossing and turning until he’d heard Doyle’s keys chink into the bowl—his own door very much left open to hear precisely that. The clock next to his bed had read 2:14, and he’d half expected to hear some shushing and half-smothered giggling. But nothing. Doyle had neither made his point by bringing her back, nor by staying over.

Bodie had lain there, blinking at the ceiling and pondering what it all might mean. Then he’d caught himself doing so and wondered when he’d turned into a first-class prat. Thumping his pillow, he’d given up and finally fallen asleep.

And now here he was, dressed in his dark blue tracksuit and staring into the fridge with the frying pan in his left hand, deep in the throes of bacon or sausages. He was having the plaster off and starting his first physio session that morning, so he figured he was entitled to as many calories as possible.

“It won’t leap out the fridge, mate. You are actually going to have to reach in and get it.”

Bodie pivoted on his good heel. There was Doyle at the doorway, shaved and dressed in a faded blue shirt, and jeans that had definitely seen better days. A smile tugged at Bodie’s lips. He couldn’t help it. There was something about a scruffy Doyle looking pleased to see him.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, hiding his reaction by turning back to the open fridge. “I was just—

The pan slid in his grip when his knee didn’t turn quite as fast as the rest of him and Bodie had a split second to be grateful it wasn’t actually full of anything, when Doyle was just there, right hand firm around Bodie’s hip as he somehow bent and snatched the pan out of the air with his left.

A moment of awe, both of them staring at the tilted pan. Then Doyle straightened and stayed exactly where the hand on Bodie’s right hip kept him. Which was way, way too close.

“Oops,” Doyle said, barely above a whisper.

This close Bodie could smell the Old Spice, which was the last sense memory he could handle that morning. “Ray...” he began, desperate to pull back, just to make Doyle fucking move.

Instead Ray very slowly and deliberately put the frying pan on the counter next to the fridge and then moved his hand up to Bodie’s right cheek. He flattened his palm out, eyes undeniably wary, and let his fingers reach slowly into the hair at Bodie’s temple. Bodie resisted the urge to close his eyes but Christ, unless he wanted to climb into the fridge next to the butter he had nowhere to go.

“It’s done.”

Bodie froze, not entirely sure what Doyle was telling him. So he waited, fighting to keep his heartbeat steady and his pose unconcerned. No way he was saying anything about anything. No fucking way.

“Angela,” Doyle choked out and Bodie kept looking at him, feeling the pads of Doyle’s fingers heat through his hair to the skin. “Last night... I couldn’t...with you and me until I talked to her. Told her.”

“Told her what?” Bodie was amazed how calm his voice was. And rather pleased at the way Doyle’s was cracking a little.

Doyle dropped the hand from Bodie’s face, but he pressed the other more firmly onto Bodie’s right hip and stayed close.

“That she shouldn’t suffer because you and I are both idiots. That I’m... That I’m not over you. In any shape or form, even though you scare the crap out of me. That even if you say no, I can’t make her be what I want anymore. I just fucking can’t, Bodie.”

Bodie swallowed, mouth suddenly bone dry. “What did she say?”

“Before or after she threw her dinner at me?” Bodie winced. Doyle stepped back, sliding his hand off Bodie’s hip as he went, and Bodie wasn’t sure if he was relieved or missing it already.

Doyle walked over to the sink, stared out the window a moment or two, then turned around and leaned back against it. He heaved a sigh. “I’m exaggerating. It wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t nice—I mean, I don’t think she likes either one of us much right now. Especially me. But she knew, Bodie. Like I said, I’m the idiot, not her. She said we’d both been trying too hard, even before you got hurt. Also said she deserved better.”

“She does.” Bodie got a look for that, but he held his own. Maybe it was easier to feel generous to Angela now that she seemed to be leaving the picture, but he couldn’t forget the way he’d instinctively liked her.

Doyle nodded, his face suddenly pinched. “I hurt her, Bodie. I always do.”

“Yeah, you do,” said Bodie brusquely. Enough. If six days in a basement, more than twice that in a hospital, and all the ops and years spent side by side with this man had taught him anything, it was that warts and all was how they took each other. Something a haze of lust had made them forget.

Bodie walked right into Doyle’s space, but kept his hands to himself and his face impassive. “So maybe you should think about someone more deserving of your horrible nature.”

It took Doyle a second or two, and it was quite something to watch the words gradually show themselves on his face.

“You mean...?”

Bodie stepped forward even more, taking Doyle’s jaw in his hand and kissing him hard for a second or two. When he spoke, he made sure his breath puffed over Doyle’s mouth, and he kept his fingers tight on Ray’s face, smoothing his thumb back and forth.

“I do. Let’s face it—we’re both idiots. So I’m pretty sure we deserve each other, sunshine.” He leaned his forehead onto Doyle’s. “Besides, I want this so much I can hardly fucking see straight,” he managed, staying where he was for a calming breath or two. Then he raised his head and cleared his throat. “But you have to be sure that none of this is guilt on your part. It cannot be pity, Ray. Not for one fucking minute.”

Birdsong, Radio 1, a kid outside—everything was suddenly loud in Bodie’s ears as he waited for which way the heavens would fall.

Doyle slowly slid out of his grip and eased over to the counter. Bodie breathed in and schooled his face before he turned. They were not to fall in his favour. So be it. So be fucking—

Doyle was in the fridge. Getting out bacon. And sausages. And putting them next to the cooker.

Bodie’s jaw might have dropped a little. Then there were hands in his tracksuit. Careful, but insistent hands pulling him forward. “It’s not pity, Bodie.” Doyle took a hand away to gesture at the food and the frying pan. “That, my son, is pity.” Doyle kissed him then, as hard and quick as Bodie had. Doyle’s voice dropped down low and husky when his palm found Bodie’s cheek again.“This? This is you hopefully forgiving me, and giving us another chance.”

Bodie stayed perfectly still.Then he tilted his head at the cooker.

“Fry the bacon and we’ll see.”

******

 **Epilogue: Six months later.**

“Oi! Bodie! Get your arse out of bed, will you? Cannot believe you went back to bed after I left, you lazy git, you’re worse than a fucking toddler needing a nap...”

Bodie cleared his throat and raised his head from the pillow to squint at the man in the doorway. “Yeah, well, most toddlers do not spend three days and nights in the bushes outside a farmhouse, thank you very much. So sod off.”

“Nah, on second thoughts...”

Bodie watched, bemused, as Doyle proceeded to peel out of clothes, toe his trainers off, and then crawl his way up the covers and Bodie.

“Hello,” said Doyle, grinning and leaning forward to kiss his nose.

“Hello yourself. Thought I was a lazy arse who had to get up?” He was trying for pissy, but Doyle had just kissed his _nose_ for fuck’s sake.

“Ah. Might have been a bit hasty there.”

As if to prove his point, Doyle started pressing him back with a series of noisy kisses along Bodie’s neck and jaw.

Bodie hissed, hands going to Ray’s shoulders and squeezing, keeping him in place. Doyle promptly moved up to his left ear. “Your first undercover,” he breathed, sending goosebumps skittering across Bodie’s skin. “All the baddies locked up, and or shot.” He pulled back so that Bodie could see him clearly. “How about we celebrate?”

Bodie let the welcome weight of Doyle rest there on his chest for a moment. Celebrate. It certainly had a nice ring to it. Certified fit for the A-Squad for a month now, and just off his first solo undercover since Kruger. Worried he wouldn’t measure up and missing Doyle like a limb, Bodie had felt positively giddy when the whole thing had gone well. And not for a second had he missed the dark circles under Doyle’s eyes when he’d walked back through the door at the end of it. Or the way Doyle had had him pushed up against that very same door before the locks had even clicked, Doyle not even hard in his jeans where he’d nudged in and held on for a full minute or two. Just grateful, Bodie supposed. Or relieved. Which... Christ, a head trip if ever there was one.

“Celebrate, eh?” Bodie shifted up, letting Doyle feel the hardening length of him through the duvet. “Can think of worse things to do on a wet Sunday afternoon.”

Doyle moved up too and yanked the duvet back. Bodie shivered, but it might have had more to do with the way Doyle was looking at him than any drop in temperature.

“Oh, I can think of much worse things, mate.”

“I bet you—Jesus!” Doyle latched onto his nipple, sucking and twisting, and all the breath shot out of Bodie as he arched up.

“What do you want, Bodie?” Doyle took Bodie’s mouth in a hot mash of lips and tongue while his right hand wrapped strongly around Bodie’s cock. He pulled back when Bodie tried to chase his mouth.“It’s your celebration. You can have my hand, my mouth, however and wherever you want them.” Said between Doyle sucking hot, bruising kisses all over his chest, licking and blowing on the marks as he went. It was perhaps the single hottest thing his partner had a habit of doing to him in bed. Doyle found the burned scar tissue peppered around his groin and was kissing and blowing on that too, suddenly gentle.

“I want...” Bodie struggled. Never one for talking during sex, it had taken a while to get used to Doyle’s penchant for asking, urging, and even badgering him with what he wanted to do and just how he was going to do it.

“Fuck me, Doyle. Just...fuck me, okay?” Twenty years the hard man, and he blushed like schoolgirl to ask such a thing. To want such a thing.

Doyle’s mouth came up to find his again, pulling him up into a long, undulating kiss while his right hand went for the bedside table. “Thought you’d never ask,” Doyle got out, kiss-biting the words into Bodie’s skin, hard and fast with marks and teeth aplenty. Always Doyle’s way.

Ray sat back on his heels while he slicked up his cock, deliberately making a show of it. When Bodie reached for him with an impatient growl, he slapped his hand away. “You just look for now.”

He looked so damn smug that Bodie had no choice but to pull him down for another bruising kiss.

Ray nudged his legs apart while he pressed a slippery finger into him. Bodie grunted, felt the burn of it still the kiss for a second. Until Ray got another finger up there, crooked just so. Doyle broke for air, panted into Bodie’s neck. “So good, Bodie. So fucking tight an’ good...” A third finger, a bite to his collar bone, and Bodie’s cock leapt even harder and higher between them.

“Ray...” Bodie managed, strangled and desperate. “Fuck me. Christ.”

Another kiss as Ray slowly took his fingers out and lined himself up. “’Course I’ll fuck you,” he said, right onto Bodie’s lips. “I’ll always fuck you. God, look at you. So fucking _desperate_.” With that, Doyle began to push in, dipping down to suck the grunt right out of Bodie’s mouth. Ray’s cock was nothing like his fingers, and Bodie fought his body’s first reaction to clench and expel. But he held on because fuck, this was Ray Doyle above and all around him, Ray Doyle whispering his own version of sweet nothings into the salt and sweat of Bodie’s skin, Ray Doyle steadily finding that perfect rhythm...

Until it all began to disappear.

“Shh...shh...” Two fingers on Bodie’s lips, which he tried to nip. Doyle locked his weight onto his left elbow, his face inches above Bodie’s while he very slowly and deliberately stopped moving.

The bastard.

“Ray..” Bodie groaned and arched up, trying to force the issue.

“Just wanna...see you like this.” Both Doyle’s hands were now palm flat either side of him as Doyle unashamedly looked his fill.

Bodie growled. “So take a...sodding...picture.”

He got a chuckle for that, and then a soft press of chaste lips to his and the back of Doyle’s fingers down his cheek. His eyes prickled. Bites and licks and thrusts and curses were what he knew of sex with men, and Doyle had a great line in driving Bodie out of his mind with a splendid array of those. But he would do this too. Would slow everything down and take his time, stretch things out and kiss without teeth, stroke without pressure, look without touching.

Bodie did what he could under such circumstances.

He pulled Ray down to him, both arms strong but not tight around his shoulders. He groaned as his erection rubbed tantalisingly against Ray’s stomach, and his legs splayed wider on instinct to get things going again, but he could do this too, he could.

He held Doyle there a moment, not saying anything because really, what was there to say that didn’t sound ridiculous and that they didn’t already know? He kissed Doyle’s ear. Twice. Then bit it, loving the yelp and clutch into his arse it produced. He grinned into that same ear. “Sometime this century, sunshine, would be nice.”

Another thrust, what sounded like a muffled chuckle, and before he knew it there was a mouth on his shoulder, a scrape of teeth, and Doyle was moving again.

“Love...bein’ inside you, Bodie... God...so fuckin’...good. Just...just... No, mine...”

The last because Bodie had tried to reach his own cock, desperate for more pressure as Doyle changed the angle and began grazing his prostate on every stroke.

“Ray...” he managed.

Doyle’s mouth came down on his in little more than an uncoordinated exchange of panted air. Ray’s rhythm stuttered as his orgasm closed in, but somehow he kept it together enough to strip Bodie’s cock, once, twice...and then Bodie was coming so hard he almost hit Ray’s head with his own as he jackknifed up.

“Christ.” His head went back on the pillow with a thump. Then a groan as Doyle’s full body weight eased down on him. Doyle kissed his neck a few times, wet and sloppy between gulps of air. Then he slowly shifted his hips enough to withdraw. Bodie groaned again.

“My...sentiments exactly,” replied Doyle, sounding unbearably smug.

Not funny in the slightest, but Doyle followed it up with the filthiest of chuckles, which set Bodie off, and they both ended up hiccupping their way back to something like normal breathing.

“Right,” announced Doyle with determination a couple of minutes later. And then he was bounding over Bodie, pausing just long enough to give him a short, smack of a kiss on his way off the bed. “Shower. I am not lying here in the wet spot. Coming?”

“Thought I just did.” Doyle made a face, while Bodie stuck his hands behind his head and enjoyed the view. “Nah, you go ahead. I’ll just lie here and enjoy me Sunday if you don’t mind. Some of us like to bask, sunshine.”

Doyle flapped a hand at him. “Fine, grandad. But I’m getting you up with a cold flannel if you doze off while I’m gone.”

“Bloody hell, Doyle. Just go and have a shower and leave me the fuck alone, will you?” But all said with a smile in his voice, so the two-fingered salute that came his way was probably not very heartfelt.

Bodie heard the shower start up and then a joyous, horrendously off-key version of ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ start up with it.

He smiled. Doyle fancying himself as Jeff Lynne while cooking and showering, was just one of the things Bodie had been coming to terms with these last few months.

He reached down to the carpet and used his discarded briefs to mop himself up and save the sheet as best he could. Then he decided to shift, ignore the wet patch entirely, and contemplate the ceiling and the sated buzz making his limbs feel warm and lazy.

Not that it had all been plain sailing since that morning. The famous morning. When Doyle had somehow righted the universe by cooking him bacon, sucking him off after tea and toast, and then leaving him at his first physio session with Bodie’s usual admonishment ‘not to talk to any strange men’ thrown back at him. With a _kiss_ , for fuck’s sake.

But recovery had been gruelling, with Bodie’s pain, exhaustion and irritation spiking to never before seen levels. Stunning and frequent blowjobs aside, it was amazing they’d made it through.

Plus there’d been nightmares. Which was par for the course in their line of work, and something he’d lived with on and off for years. Especially since the Congo. But it had taken a while for him to realise that he hadn’t shrugged off the events in the basement as easily as he’d claimed. And sleeping with Doyle every night was not really giving him a place to hide. So with great reluctance—and the promise of even more blowjobs—Bodie had agreed to let Kate Ross inside his head a little.

And was still letting her in. Once a week, in fact. Neither he nor Doyle mentioned the fact that he hardly ever jerked awake in the middle of the night anymore. Well, not unless Doyle was late in and feeling randy.

And there was Angela, of course. Doyle and she had not ended up as friends, thank Christ. Though bizarrely enough, Bodie had managed a fairly civilised conversation over coffee and biscuits with her one morning about two months after the famous morning. Doyle was out scouting Russians, and Bodie was having a rare day of rest at the flat because he’d overdone it and bruised the bone in his still healing shin.

Doyle had mumbled something about Angela wanting to come by to pick up some of her things when he wasn’t there. He’d handed Bodie a carrier bag, kissed him fiercely, apologised, and left.

Awkward pleasantries over, Bodie had actually found himself relaxing in her presence that morning. She was one of the few who knew about him and Doyle, whatever the awful circumstances of that knowledge. Cowley had taken Bodie staying on at Doyle’s as a way to save on accommodation expenditure—whether he knew or suspected anything else was yet to be determined. And it had taken about a paranoid fortnight for them to realise that no one on the squad was twigging to their change in sleeping arrangements, because in the light of day, they were as full of argy bargy with each other as they’d ever been. Except Murphy maybe, who Doyle maintained would look over on occasion and smile smugly for no bloody reason at all.

Bodie remembered Angela’s and his conversation...

 _“You were in hospital, remember? When I told you about how bad Ray was when you were in a coma?”_

 _“And he came in, going on about parking spaces? Yeah, I remember.”_

 _Bodie sipped his coffee, suddenly nervous about where this might go._

 _Angela studied her hands, fiddling with the small gold ring there–finding out she was now engaged to the woodwork teacher at her school had made things a whole lot easier on both sides. From the little she said, Bodie suspected he’d been in the picture long before Doyle had turned her head._

 _She looked up at him. “Pining.”_

 _Bodie wasn’t sure he’d heard properly. “I’m sorry, what?”_

 _“That’s what I was trying to tell you that day, before he burst in. It was like he was pining. For you. And then after you woke up...” She let her hands fall open in a helpless gesture._

 _Bodie simply nodded, absurdly touched by what this very classy woman was trying to tell him..._

 _“I knew then and there we would never work. I just...but it’s bloody Ray, isn’t it? The sod.” A smile with more tears than laughter in it. And Bodie couldn’t help but reach over and squeeze her hand briefly. They were never going to be friends. They would probably never see each other again. But it had been nice to sit in the kitchen that morning and drink coffee with someone who understood the ‘bloody Ray’ syndrome perfectly._

“Are you still not up?” Bellowed from the hall.

“I’m waiting for afternoon tea if you must know. Thought you might—

A wet flannel hit him square in the face.

“Told you. Now up, mate. I’ve got all sorts planned for us and I need you bright and breezy and dressed at the front door in twenty minutes, all right?”

By the time Bodie had the flannel balled up in his hands to throw back, there was, of course, nothing but the sound of whistling and door banging in the air.

He sighed as he swung his legs over the side of the bed.

Bloody Ray just about said it all.

******


End file.
